


Fallen

by Fyre



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-30
Updated: 2014-02-09
Packaged: 2018-01-03 01:13:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 10,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1063912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fyre/pseuds/Fyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Interns shouldn’t have to pick up the dead bodies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Duct Tape is a Girl's Best Friend

**Author's Note:**

> I blame Valerie Parker and Rufeepeach for encouraging this :P

People always said Colorado was pretty.

When you were stuck up in the mountains without even a decent wifi signal, it was just pretty boring.

Once, Darcy had a normal life, long before Gods and aliens and monsters from space and secret Government agencies who never told them anything until it was too late and she was left washing goop out of her hair again. 

Once, things were normal. 

Sometimes, she wondered what it would be like to go back to Snoresville.

Sure, it was a pain in the ass when everything went crazy, but then, Darcy always liked things best when things went a little crazy. It kept them interesting, and even with the space goop, it was worth it. Especially when Jane gave up and started paying her expenses to stop her complaining about it.

She wasn’t sure if she was still technically classed as an intern, especially since interns didn’t usually get direct numbers for SHIELD. Plus, Jane was so busy making out with Space God that she didn’t seem to notice that Darcy was doing all - well, most - well, some of the work.

When the gizmos and doodads all lit up like Christmas, Darcy tried to call her so-called boss, and got nothing. Since getting extra points for hard work usually meant the good pizza for dinner, Darcy sighed, took her keys, and headed off in the direction of the disturbance with her video recorder. 

Of course it was the backside of nowhere. 

Of course it wasn’t just the gadgets being weird. 

Of course it wasn’t something an intern was meant to deal with.

Interns shouldn’t have to pick up the dead bodies.

The ground was all burned up in the weird patterns that showed up whenever Thor decided to stop by. It had melted right through the snow and down into the dirt. Trees nearby were still smoking, and in the middle of the blackened circle, the body was laid out like it had fallen flat on its face. 

Darcy eyed the body, then picked up a long stick and prodded it. It looked like it was a guy, but she’d seen enough weird things falling out of the sky to not believe what she saw anymore. It groaned and she stepped back. Okay. Not dead.

She poked it again with the stick, and when that didn’t move, she kicked it in the hip.

“Hey. You dead?”

The body twitched and rolled over.

Darcy stared at the new alien guy. “Oh shit.”

 

_________________________________________

 

SHIELD weren’t answering their calls again.

Jane’s cell kept going to voicemail.

The phone bounced off the table and Darcy threw herself down on the couch.

Her taser was on the table in front of her, and she also had a gun - she wasn’t sure exactly how to use it, but how difficult could point-and-bang be? - and one of the kitchen knives. It was better to be ready for anything.

No one had left a memo about what to do if a crazy alien god guy showed up unconscious in the woods. Especially not when that crazy alien god guy was the same one who had invaded New York with an army.

Loki, Thor’s bad boy brother, was tied up in her living room. 

Well, not exactly tied.

Duct tape was wrapped around his arms and chest, strapping him to the chair. His legs too. And his wrists. He was so out of it when she found him that he staggered along when she told him to, and now, he was her prisoner.

When he woke up properly, he looked confused, like he’d been hit over the head, but he didn’t say anything. Once or twice a minute, he tugged against the duct tape, then subsided back in the chair, scowling at her.

“They’ll be coming for you,” she said, leaning forward and resting her arms on her knees like she’d seen people do in movies. “SHIELD. Thor. Jane.”

Loki’s green eyes narrowed, flicking from her to the phone and back. “Your frustration suggests otherwise.”

Darcy made a face at him. “I have more duct tape, and they’ll pick up their messages sooner or later,” she said. 

“You believe this feeble substance can hold me?” 

She tilted her head, looking him up and down. “S’holding pretty good so far,” she said, sitting back on the couch. “You want another layer? My mom bought wholesale. I have a box of the stuff.”

His eyes blazed, but he said nothing and strained against the tape again.

She got the feeling that she had just been put on his ‘People to kill’ list. He looked like the kind of guy who would have one.

Just to be on the safe side, she went and got two more rolls of duct tape and wrapped them around him as well. He snarled at her, all white teeth and anger. She didn’t know what the hell he was saying. He was speaking Ye Olde Gode language, but she figured it was an insult, so she duct-taped his mouth as well.

He recoiled, trying to shake it off, and if looks could have killed, Darcy knew she’d have dropped dead.

But they didn’t, and he was still tied to a chair and not going anywhere.

She went and made herself a pot of noodles, then sat and watched her prisoner until she was bored and tired enough to go to bed. It was late already, so she left another message on Jane’s cell, before changing for bed.

It wasn’t until she was half-asleep that she remembered her prisoner, who wasn’t wearing anything but a pair of trousers and a shirt. It was pretty cold. Pulling on her sweater over her pyjamas, she stumbled back through to the living room and pulled the blanket off the back of the couch.

Loki eyed her as she wrapped it around him.

“So you don’t get cold,” she explained, yawning. “Jane would totally kill me if my first prisoner died.”

He was frowning even more, but she tucked the blanket right up to his chin, patted him on the head, and wandered back to bed.


	2. No Pop tarts for Prisoners

He was still there in the morning.

Okay, so she knew that as soon as she woke up, what with the not being dead and everything, but still. She’d almost forgotten until she wandered into the living room, her toothbrush in her mouth, and stopped dead at the sight of him. 

His chin was resting on his chest and his eyes were closed, but the second she stepped into the room, his eyes flicked open and he looked up at her.

Darcy waggled her fingers, before padding across the floor to the kitchenette, and spitting a mouthful of foamy paste down the sink. 

“Told you duct tape is pretty good,” she said smugly, rinsing her brush. She gargled some water and spat down the sink, then turned to look at him, wiping her mouth on her sleeve. He looked at her, his nose wrinkled. “What? You kill thousands of people, and you think you can get all judgey on me cleaning my teeth?”

Loki snorted, looking away.

Darcy stuck her tongue out at him. She filled the coffee maker, and dug through the cupboards. There were always pop tarts, if his mighty Godiness was due to visit. For whatever reason, he liked them. The box was tucked away on the back of one of the shelves and she tugged it free.

It was empty, again.

“Damn it, Thor!” She swung around to glare at his brother. “Don’t you have rules in Asgard to replace something when you use it up?” She shook the empty box. “That’s the second time this month he ate all the pop tarts!”

Loki was staring at her like she was crazy.

“Oh. Right. You probably don’t have pop tarts,” she said, tossing the box to one side and reaching into the cupboards again. “Probably some kind of weird god-food or something. Well, since your brother ate all the pop tarts, you’re just gonna have to have cheerios like everyone else.” She paused, box in hand, and looked at him. “You probably can eat human-food, right? I mean, you’re an alien, but so’s Mr Muscles.”

Loki rolled his eyes and looked away.

“Hey, don’t blame me!” Darcy said, grabbing two bowls from the cupboard. “Blame the Geneva convention! They have all these rules about treating prisoners humanely.” She paused, looking at him. “Huh. Do I have to treat you humanely if you’re not human?”

The look he gave her could have melted steel.

Darcy flipped the bird at him. “I don’t have to be nice to you,” she said. “Especially not since no one else knows you’re here. I could torture you or anything and no one would know.”

Loki was already pale, but under the duct tape, his face went bone-white. If she didn’t know better, he almost looked scared. A God. Scared of a human girl with no power of anything. Or maybe not of her. Maybe just because of the idea of torture.

Huh.

She frowned, turning back to the cereal and poured out two bowls. “I’m not going to,” she said, over her shoulder. “Torture you, I mean. I don’t know how, and I don’t wanna get blood on the floor. Alien goop was bad enough. I bet blood would leave a stain.”

She added milk to one of the bowls, then turned back around to face him. He was watching her again, but warily now. Thor had never looked afraid of anyone, not even when they were trying to lock him up, but this guy? He looked like a pissed-off cat who couldn’t decide if it would attack or run away.

“You hungry?” She held up the bowl. “It’s not a pop tart, but it’s not bad.”

He lifted his chin, pointedly reminding her that he couldn’t reply.

She studied him. “You going to behave?” she said. “No more old-language name-calling?”

He blew out a noisy breath through his nose, then grudgingly nodded.

Darcy set the bowl down on the coffee table and carefully peeled the duct tape away from Loki’s mouth. She almost felt bad when she saw how red the skin was, but he was scowling and hey, look! No more guilt!

“I’ll leave it off as long as you behave,” she warned. “Now open your mouth.”

“What do you intend to poison me with?” he asked, his voice rasping, his lips dry and cracked. He was still paler than Thor, who always looked like he was a walking commercial for a healthy tan.

“Poison?” She rolled her eyes, and pulled the coffee table closer to sit on the edge of it. “It’s called cereal.” She scooped up a spoonful and held it out to him. “You’ve got this or you’ve got bread that’s kinda green. I’d go with this.”

“I am capable of feeding myself,” he muttered darkly.

“Yeah,” Darcy said, “and probably ripping my head off with your bare hands if I was dumb enough to untie you. Not gonna happen.” She jiggled the spoon. “Trust me, this is a one time offer. You eat or I put the bowl in front of you and you can stick your face in it.”

Reluctantly, he opened his mouth and she spooned cheerios into it.

For all that he complained, he still ate all of the cereal, his eyes fixed on her face the whole time.

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” she said, as she got up to fetch her own bowl. She padded back to the couch, sitting down cross-legged, and smooshed the cereal under the milk. She could see him fisting his hands, and straining at the tape again. “So what’re you doing here?”

He clenched his jaw and said nothing.

She stirred the cereal. “You’re stuck here,” she said, “and I’m bored. If SHIELD ever show up, they’ll want a debrief, which is totally not as fun as it sounds. I’d kinda like to be able to tell them something. I mean, last time you showed up, you went all ‘I am your evil overlord’ before we kicked your ass.” She took a mouthful of cereal. “And that’s gotta be embarrassing. You had what? Thousands? And we had six.” She pointed her spoon at him. “You gotta look at hiring better contractors if you want to go all global domination.”

He smiled a tight, thin-lipped smile. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said.

She scooped up another spoonful. “So?” 

He raised his eyebrows, gazing at her coldly.

“Look, the way I see it,” she said, wagging her milk-smeared spoon at him, “you’re gonna kill me dead anyway, so it doesn’t matter how much you want me to stop, because you’re going to do the same thing whether I stop or not.”

“You babble like a child,” he snorted.

“Mm-hmm.” She licked the spoon. “And I can go for hours without stopping. You just ask Jane about our road trip across Europe.” She set the half-finished bowl down on the table and picked up her taser instead, turning it over in her hands. “So what? You decided to try the sneaky invasion this time? One man busting in through the back door?” 

She looked down at her taser, remembering the last time one alien god guy had crash-landed to earth and left a crater almost as big as the one she’d found Loki in.

“Or did you end up here like Goldielocks did?” she asked, looking back up at him.

God, he was good. She almost didn’t see the flicker in his eyes.

“Oh, so that’s it? You’re all mortal and gooey now?” She grinned at him. “Okay, that makes you kinda less scary. Not much, because hello, psycho, but still. Mortal is way easier to deal with than god.”

“You presume much,” he snarled.

She shrugged. “Yeah, and?” She picked up her cereal bowl again, giving the mush a poke. It was almost soft enough, so she scooped up another spoonful. “Big god guy wouldn’t have stayed tied to a chair all night if he was all powerful and stuff, right? And here you are, tied to a chair and stuff. So not god anymore, right?”

He looked away from her, and she could see the muscle in his cheek twitching.

Looked like it was a sore spot right there.

And now, he was sulking like a kid without a candy bar.

Great.

“I don’t see what the big deal is,” she said conversationally minutes later, when he still didn’t say anything. “It’s not like being mortal is so bad. We’ve got all kinds of cool stuff, and we don’t have to try and take over other peoples’ planets just because we have brother issues.”

He made a short, sputtered sound like an annoyed cat. 

“What?” she said, pulling her feet up onto the couch. “You’re saying you don’t have brother issues? Have you any idea how much that big doofus cares about you?” She frowned at him. “And he thought you were dead. Oh, I bet he was pissed when…” She groaned as the thought came to her. “I’m such a spazz! That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? That’s why you don’t have any magic or goddy stuff, right? Because Thor totally found you out?” She shook her head. “Yeah. Brother issues. Don’t you have therapists on Asgard?”

He scowled, his lips a thin line. 

They sat in silence for almost five minutes.

“Y’know,” she said, getting up. “I thought having a prisoner would be more interesting.” She picked up his bowl. “You stay here, I’m gonna shower.”

Even before she turned her back, she could hear the creak of the chair and the tape as he tried to pull free. She shut the bathroom door and didn’t even bother locking it. Her mom always did buy industrial strength stuff.


	3. God-Sitting

There were technical problems with holding someone prisoner.

The most awkward one was the fact that ex-gods who were now mortal sometimes needed to pee, and Loki was very much a boy ex-god. 

It was a choice of untying him even a little bit or pretend she was trying not to look.

Thor had been able to kick ass way too easily, and she had a feeling Loki wouldn’t exactly be short of fighting stuff, which meant it was a strategic bucket, undoing Loki’s pants for him, all weird Asgard fasteners and things. 

Okay, there was a part of her that wanted to see if alien parts were anything like human parts or if Jane was into some really kinky stuff.

“Do you guys ever get out of your clothes?” she demanded, kneeling down between his splayed knees and tugging at the fastening. “It must take forever.”

“Mortals are advanced indeed,” he said bitterly, “if they cannot manage a simple clasp.”

“Ha!” Darcy snorted. “I can undo my triple-hooked bra one-handed, behind my back. With my left hand.” 

He went quiet again. He wasn’t saying much anymore, and she only knew he was still there and conscious because he was breathing so hard all the damn time. It was like having a creepy stalker sitting in the living room instead of on the phone.

She touched a point on the mechanism holding his belt in place, and it flicked open. It looked like the inside of a clock, and she gave him a look. 

“A buckle is just too easy for you, huh? Had to dress it up and make it weird.” 

He wasn’t looking at her again.

Huh.

How about that.

Loki of Asgard had his eyes closed, and his cheeks were flushed. 

“Oh, please,” she snorted, opening up his pants. “You’ve got nothing I haven’t seen bef…” Darcy trailed off and rocked back on her heels. “Huh.” She glanced up at him. “Tall guy in every way.”

He avoided her gaze, and she held up the bucket for him, rolling her eyes that a guy who was meant to be hundreds, maybe thousands, of years old could blush over someone seeing his dick. 

He only blushed the first time, then he was back to his usually pasty self.

Probably realised she wasn’t going to poke fun at him, but when he needed the bathroom, he would clear his throat once. Not like she could expect manners from him, but he just sat there, not doing anything useful. He even stopped fighting against the tape. Just sat. Watched. Closed his eyes and maybe he was sleeping or doing whatever god-aliens did.

She kept on coming back to the cat-thing. He was a cat. A tall, skinny, duct-taped cat. He ignored her most of the time, looked down on her the rest of it, until she showed up with food or he needed to pee.

He was glaring at her - no big change there - while she gave him a drink, when the cell finally rang. It was almost three in the afternoon, and she’d been on her own with a prisoner for nearly twenty-four hours, sleep included. 

“One second!” She scrambled over the coffee table, grabbing the phone off the couch. “Jane?”

“Darcy, I need you to watch the lab for…”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Darcy exclaimed. “Me first! I left you like thirty messages! We have a visitor!”

“Darcy, if your boyfriend’s visiting, I don’t mind,” Jane said. She sounded wound up even more tight than usual. “There’s a real situation going on, and I need you to stay at the cabin. You’ll be safe there.”

“Jane! Jane!” Darcy lowered her voice to an urgent whisper. “Will you listen to me? I have a guy here, tied to a chair! I think you might want to know about it!”

Whatever she was doing, Jane sure as hell wasn’t listening. She was definitely talking to someone else on the other end of the line, someone who was apparently important enough to ignore Darcy’s info dump about what the hell had been happening.

Jane was obviously in science-mode.

It was like talking to a wall when she got like that, so Darcy hung up.

She didn’t even need to turn around to know Loki was watching her, and was probably smiling a smug smile.

“Don’t say a goddamn word,” she said, raising one finger. “Until she checks her messages again, looks like you and me are stuck together.”

Loki snorted tiredly. “How… delightful.” His voice was rasping even more than before. Too much being quiet, she figured, but now he was speaking again, it was annoying.

She spun around, narrowing her eyes at him. “I think I’ll stop feeding you,” she declared. “Or getting you the bucket. I might even drag you out to the shed out back. Then I won’t even notice if you start to smell bad.”

He met her eyes defiantly, but there was definite doubt there. “You wouldn’t dare.”

She leaned down to look him in the eyes, bracing one hand on his shoulder. “First time Thor showed up, I hit him with a truck and then tasered him and put him in hospital,” she said. She squeezed his shoulder as hard as she could. “You’re all mortal now, Mr Murdering Psycho, and I haven’t tasered anyone in way too long.”

He held her gaze, staring at her so long and hard that her eyes were starting to water.

Then, to her surprise, his lips twitched in a smile that almost reached his eyes. “Then I had better be on my best behaviour,” he said.


	4. Lessons in Takeout

He actually behaved.

For most of the day while she tried to put together a report, he watched daytime TV, frowning in puzzlement over the talk shows, and straining against his tape bonds every time an informercial came on. 

He didn’t complain, though, and she almost could pretend he wasn’t there, until he declared at he was hungry.

Darcy looked around in surprise. 

Okay, it was true she’d been snacking on chips and candy all day, but she figured he would have said something sooner. It was dark outside too, which wasn’t good. He was looking even paler than before. Even his lips were white.

“Your Geneva convention allows for one meal a day only?” he said, his voice hoarse. He sounded like hell. “Or is to be starvation?”

“Or you could just have said something sooner, you stubborn jerk,” Darcy snorted, unfolding from the desk she was working at. 

Since Jane was being useless and elsewhere, and SHIELD clearly were way too busy to answer the calls of an intern, Darcy figured she might as well make the best of a crappy situation by ordering take out on Jane’s emergency credit card. 

Sure, it was meant to be secret and hidden in the back of a locked drawer, but holding an Asgardian prisoner hostage could be classed as an emergency, and hey, the lock could always be replaced.

Darcy spread the takeout menus across the table between her and Loki.

“So, what do you want?” she asked.

“Liberation and the means to rule this world,” he said, raising his chin from his chest. He sounded pissy, and that make her clench her teeth. She gave him a glare, which he returned with a blank, tired look. “Oh, you meant from these lists? Well, that’s less interesting.”

“You were the one who was complaining you were hungry,” she said. “You like Thai?”

His face twisted up in confusion.

“Okay, Chinese? Italian? Mexican?”

Every one was met with the same look.

Darcy stared at him. “Let me get this straight,” she said. “You tried to take over the world and you don’t even know what your takeout options are? God, you would have been a crappy evil overlord!”

For a second, he almost looked like he was going to go all pissy cat again, but his expression smoothed out. “Is that like… Russian?” he asked, shaping the word carefully, like he’d only heard it once before.

Darcy nodded. “Kinda,” she said. “Russians come from Russia. Like you’re an Asgardian from Asgard.” She tapped the menus. “It’s like take out food is based on food from those countries: Chinese from China, Thai food from Thailand. That kind of thing.” 

“China. Thailand. Russia.” He glanced up. “Mexica?” 

“Countries,” she clarified. And it’s Mexico.”

“Your planet is small to have five countries.”

Darcy couldn’t help laughing. “Five? Oh my god! Didn’t you even do basic geography?”

His expression darkened. “I amuse you?”

“Only because you think earth is one big happy place where everyone is the same,” she said, shaking her head. “We have hundreds of countries and they don’t all get along at all.” She snatched up one of the menus at random. “Look, I’ll get us food, then we can talk geography. It’s not like it’ll get here in a hurry. The nearest town is fifty k’s from here.”

He drew himself up as much as the duct tape would let him. “Very well. I seem to be a captive audience.”

Darcy made a face. “Funny,” she said, bounding to her feet and heading to the phone.

By the time the food finally arrived, wrapped up in three layers of foil to keep it even a little hot, Loki was leaning forward in his chair to study the atlases spread out in front of him. 

The idea of continents being divided into countries confused him, and he asked way too many questions about how they were split, who made the choices, why small countries were not just absorbed, and why larger countries didn’t just take power of whole continents. There were questions she didn’t even begin to understand. 

Darcy was kinda surprised by how interested he was, but it didn’t feel like she was giving him any information he couldn’t get just by walking into a library. If he started asking which ones had the biggest weapons… well, then she knew to shut up, but giving him a list of countries was harmless. At least, she was pretty sure it was.

“Back up, schoolboy,” she said, tugging the books away. “Feeding time.”

He raised his eyes to her. “Am I to be fed like an animal again?”

“More like a baby,” she replied, setting the boxes down on the table and unwrapping them. “If you were getting fed like an animal, it’d be in a bowl on the floor.” She flicked open one of the lids, and looked at him with a grin when his stomach growled. “So just a little hungry?”

He bared his teeth. “Indeed.”

He didn’t say another word until he had wolfed down two full boxes of noodles, and half the spring rolls. Even then, he just sat, licking at his lips, as pale as he had been all night. He was watching her with a curious, wary expression in his half-closed eyes.

“I have a question.”

Darcy jabbed her fork into a wonton. “Shoot.” He drew back, frowning. “I mean ‘ask’,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“You are Jane Foster’s servant, correct?”

“Hey! Back up!” Darcy pointed the wonton at him. “I’m no one’s servant! I just… kinda work for her for almost no money.”

“The difference being?”

She stared at him. “The difference being…” She bit the wonton, thinking furiously. “The difference being that Jane listens to what I say and goes where I tell her she should go.”

Dark eyebrows arched upwards. “Except here, and now,” he said mildly. 

“Well, duh,” Darcy set down her takeout box. “This is her place after…” She paused, then looked at him, her eyes narrowing. “That’s why you came here, isn’t it? You were trying to get to her.”

Loki’s lips twisted in a brief, dark smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Oh, clever girl.”

Darcy drummed her fingertips on her knees, then grabbed the duct tape, and stood up. “Wrong thing to say, Mister High-and-Mighty,” she said, tearing off a long strip. 

He shied back in his seat, trying to avoid her and the tape, but she wrapped it across his mouth, strands of his hair stuck to his face too. 

She looked at him, all dark-eyed and angry, her hands braced on his shoulders, one knee on the edge of the seat between his legs. 

“I was going to treat you like a proper prisoner,” she informed him. “But Jane’s my friend, even if she’s pretty much ignoring me right now, and if you even try to hurt her…” She shoved her knee forward, hard, and he couldn’t even fold up in pain. Darcy squeezed his shoulders. “That’d be how it starts.” 

Loki’s eyes were watering, and he looked up at her with a strange expression. It was a weird mess of resignation and triumph, like he’d expected her to do it already, and now she had, he’d been right all along.

She straightened up, folding her arms.

He was a messed up piece of work.

Trickster god, according to Erik’s book. 

Mean and ruthless, but Thor cared about him, so there had to be something there worth caring about. Thor was like a big teddy bear, but he had a brain too, and smart people didn’t just care about evil guys for no reason.

She tapped her fingertips on her arm.

“Tomorrow,” she informed him, “we talk.”


	5. Manflu

So she’d always known he was a crazy psychopath.

The whole taking-over-the-world thing kind of gave that away.

Coming after Jane was a whole other low. 

Darcy tossed and turned in her bed, punching her pillows. There wasn’t much that made her lose sleep, but worrying about her friends did that to her. Jane and Erik both got in trouble when she wasn’t around, and now, she had to keep a crazy god off their trail.

Erik would freak out if he knew Loki was alive and back and mortal.

He’d probably show up at the house with a rocket launcher or something, just to finish him off.

And Jane…

As much as Darcy had wanted to get Jane home to deal with Loki, now it didn’t seem like such a good idea. If he came for Jane, then the last thing Darcy wanted to do was pretty much call up and say ‘hey, I have a trap with your name on it. Want to come and see?’.

She rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling.

God, it was annoying having to think about keeping people safe.

She pulled her pillow over her face and held it there with both arms, until she must have fallen asleep. Maybe she just passed out from lack of air. She didn’t know and didn’t care, but either way, she was woken when something crashed over in the living room.

It was like someone had electrified the bed.

She was on her feet, taser in hand, in a split-second, her heart racing.

“I’m armed,” she yelled, grabbing the baseball bat from beside the door.

There wasn’t a sound.

Could have just been a racoon or something.

Definitely not a crazy space god on the loose.

Not that at all.

She tugged the door open just a little and peeked out.

All she could see were Loki’s feet, sticking out sideways from behind the breakfast bar. She blew out a sigh of relief. He must have just tipped the chair over or something. 

Still, she edged forward, bat and taser both ready, just in case.

That was when she heard the sound: a rasping, wheezing.

She leaned around the edge of the counter.

Loki’s head was resting against the floor, and he looked grey. His eyes were half-closed, and she could see he was shivering.

“Shit!” 

She was on her knees beside the chair in a second, her fingers at his throat, trying to find his pulse to make sure it wasn’t slowing or stopping.

Maybe that was the weakness of the Asgardians: knee them in the balls and they broke.

She shook Loki’s shoulder and yelled his name. His eyelids flickered, and she smacked him across the cheek, trying to wake him. His skin was crazy hot. “Hey! Don’t you dare die on me!”

He tried to open his eyes, but his head fell back.

Darcy stared at him. Could be he was faking, trickster god and everything, but faking a temperature that high? She pressed her palm to his forehead and that made him shiver even more. 

Crap crap crap.

So, a guy lying in snow in thin clothing for hours was bad. Or maybe it was just the kneeing in the balls. Or maybe a bit of both.

She shook his shoulder again, then reached down and pulled the duct tape off his mouth. “Hey, are you sick? Is this god-sick?”

“Mortality,” he rasped out, his lips as pale as his skin. “Dying.”

Darcy rocked back on her heels staring at him. “Bullshit,” she declared. “This is just some trick to get me to untie you, isn’t it?”

He made a small, pathetic choking sound that was meant to be laughter. “I hoped,” he whispered hoarsely, “you would stay elsewhere. Away from me.” He shook his head slightly. “Humiliating.”

“Right. Like being tied to a chair is high up the list of things to do before you die,” she snorted. She grabbed the chair and pulled with both hands, trying to get it upright, but Loki was a big guy, and she… well… wasn’t. “Shit.”

“Leave me.”

She scowled down at him. “Can’t,” she said. “You’re blocking the kitchen.” She tilted her head watching him, as he let his head fall back against the floor. “You’re really not faking it, are you?”

“Why?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Darcy snorted. “To get me to untie you, so you can kill me and go after my friends and probably kill them too?” She shook her head. “You’re not exactly an easy guy to believe, y’know.”

Loki shuddered as much as the tape would allow. “Mm.” He closed his eyes. “If I die here, Thor…” He was silent for a moment, as if trying to decide. “He should know.”

Darcy poked him. “You’re not dying.”

A slit of a green eye opened just enough. 

“You’re not. You’re talking way too much for someone who thinks they’re dying. I think you’ve just got manflu.” She tugged on his arm again, but when he didn’t move, she sighed. “Okay, I’m probably going to regret this…”

It took some fighting with a kitchen knife and the tape to detach him from the chair. When she got one arm free, she waited for him to grab at her, to take her by the throat, but he just lay there, all sprawled out and useless on the floor.

The rest of the tape caused just as much trouble, but when she finally got him free of the chair, she winced. His shirt and pants were still damp from when she found him. No wonder he’d got a cold. 

Okay, first things first.

Getting a half-conscious ex-god with a cold out of his damp clothes was easier than getting a drunk Erik back into his. 

Loki was pale all over, all lean and angular where Thor was curved muscles and broad shoulders, but not scary thin. He just looked like a skinny, regular guy. Hard to believe he had killed thousands of people.

She dug out some of the clothes Jane had stashed in her room, things Thor liked wearing when he was on earth, and pulled and pushed Loki into them. His limbs were limp. Looked like he really wasn’t good.

It took more work to get him to the couch.

She caught his wrists and dragged him across the floor, then shook him until his eyes opened a crack.

“You’re gonna have to work with me here,” she said, nodding to the couch. “You’re big. I’m not. I can’t lift you up there.” 

He squinted at her as if he was having trouble comprehending her, and she groaned, shoving her shoulder under his arm and hauling him up as much as she could. He seemed to get the idea, and pushed himself back, until he was sprawled on the couch, his head on one arm, his legs sticking out over the other.

Darcy started to straighten up, but he caught her wrist in his hand and mumbled something incomprehensible in some weird old language.

She stared at him, wondering what he was saying and who he was saying it too.

“You get some rest,” she said, touching his forehead lightly. His skin was burning, but he was still shivering. She rose to fetch the blankets. “I’ll make you something hot to drink, then we can google to work out what kind of manflu you have.” She tried to pull her arm free, but he was still holding on too tightly. “You’ll need to give me my hand back.”

He opened his eyes and his pupils were so wide that his eyes almost looked completely black. “Don’t be angry with me,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean it. What I said.” His eyes looked wet, bright. “I’m sorry.”

Darcy frowned at him. Whoever he was speaking to, it sure as hell wasn’t her.

Still, if he thought that person was there, maybe it would get him to let go.

“I know,” she said quietly. “And I need you to rest now. You need to rest.”

Loki nodded, closing his eyes. 

So close, she could see the creases and lines on his face, the way his features tensed up. His fingers loosened around her wrist and slipped away. There were faint, reddish markings on her skin, but they would fade soon enough. 

Darcy fetched the blankets, covering him up. She even tucked the second blanket around his feet, and fetched a hot water bottle which she shoved in between the folds in the blanket. He didn’t even seem to notice, his cheek resting against the arm of the couch.

For a second, he looked young. Human. Normal. Tired. And sorry.

That was something no one mentioned when Loki came up in conversation: there was someone or something that he felt bad about.

He shifted, curling up under the blankets, and shivered.

Darcy sat down on the edge of the couch, watching him. “You better not die,” she said quietly. 

He didn’t reply.


	6. Feeling Blue

Darcy was trying to figure out how to put together a letter to insist on a raise.

Taking a former God prisoner was one thing. Spoon-feeding him was another. But having him shaking and sick with fever was a whole other thing. He drifted somewhere between sleep and consciousness, tossing, turning, and muttering under his breath on the couch.

She gave up on sleeping in her own bed, dragging her covers through to the arm chair in the living room, just to keep one eye on him. Plus, it was easier to keep them both warm by lighting a fire in the big fireplace, even if fetching wood in from the snow outside was a pain in the ass. 

It took a hell of a lot of work to get him to wake up enough to drink something or eat or show he wasn’t just going to fall down dead on her watch. Still, he didn’t fight her or argue, just watching her out of tired, glazed eyes as she spooned soup into his mouth or helped him drink hot, sweet tea.

If she asked him how he was, he wouldn’t answer.

That made her think it was pretty bad.

The fever was the worst.

He was flushed and sweaty all the time, but no matter how hot his skin was, he kept on shivering like he was too cold. She tucked blankets around him. She even squeezed his crazy big feet into some wool socks she found in Jane’s drawers.

Darcy left more messages for Jane, but there was still no response, or any sign that Jane was even bothering to check them. Hours ticked by, and the mortal formerly known as God wasn’t getting any better.

She was making herself a cup of hot chocolate when he started muttering again, and she glanced back at him to see him thrashing against the blankets. He was on the verge of falling off the couch, and she knew if he did that, he’d be spending the night on the floor.

She ran back to the couch, pushing him back. It took all her weight on his chest to pin him down, and even that almost wasn’t enough.

“Hey, hey hey!” she exclaimed, shaking his shoulder. “Easy! You need to rest!”

His eyes flew open, and she jerked back, startled. His green, human eyes weren’t green or human anymore. They were solid red, and he stared at her. His skin looked weird too, faint lines becoming visible on his pale cheeks.

His hand moved, catching her wrist, and she looked down.

So weird amped up to eleven.

His hand was blue.

Not just too-cold blue, but actual deep blue, almost black at the fingertips. And it was starting to hurt. Not in a bruise way, but in a so cold he was burning her way.

She looked back up at his face, her heart pounding. Seemed like God powers were coming back, and pissing him off didn’t feel like a good idea. For all she knew, she was already on his hit-list and reminding him of that wasn’t exactly a good way to survive the night. 

“So,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady, “is this a weird Asgardian thing? I mean, I’ve never seen any other Asgardian turn blue.”

He stared at her in incomprehension, then looked down at his hand.

He wasn’t someone who let his emotions show much, but in that second, she saw pure, blind terror.

“No,” he rasped, recoiling back from her, tearing his hand away from her wrist. “No! I won’t become one of them! Better mortal than that!”

Darcy hissed through her teeth, looking down at her wrist. There were blisters where his fingers had touched her bare skin, ugly and red. Her mouth felt dry and she wanted to grab her coat and run, but where the hell could she go? It was dark and blowing a storm outside.

She got up slowly, unsteadily, and fetched the medikit from the cabinet.

Loki didn’t even notice. 

He had dragged himself off the couch and crawled to the fireplace, holding out his hands to the flame. They were shaking almost as much as he was, but they were turning back to Pasty-God rather than Killer-Smurf, and he crumpled on the rug in front of the fire, like all the strength had gone out of him.

Darcy sat cautiously on the chair, dabbing painkilling goo on her wrist.

“One of them?” she finally asked, when he didn’t get up or attack her.

On the hearth rug, he was lying on his side, staring into the fire, and he shook his head just a little. “It is no matter,” he whispered.

“I think it is,” she observed, wrapping a strip of gauze around her wrist. “You turned blue and freaked out. For Mr Calm and Collected, freaking out doesn’t seem to be your kind of thing, y’know.”

He was silent again. 

Darcy taped the gauze in place, and sat watching him.

Whatever the hell was going on in his head, it was bothering him a lot. Enough that he didn’t even care that he was untied and lying on the floor, or that he’d had strength enough to hurt her when it all happened.

Whatever it was, it had to be bad, if he preferred to be helpless and sick than able to burn her up with one touch.

She got up from the chair and went over to the couch, gathering up his blanket. She carried it over to him, draping it carefully over him and tucking it around his body. He flinched at her touch, and it was strange, but that didn’t surprise her. Before he turned his face away, she was sure she could see wetness on his cheeks.

He was screwed up, way more than Thor had told them. 

He was scared shitless of stuff, and felt guilty about stuff, and he was jealous of his big brother. He wasn’t just a crazy God who wanted world domination. There was way more going on there, and whatever it was, it was enough to make him cringe away from her touch and smear tears into the rug.

She watched him for a moment. “You want some hot chocolate?” she offered quietly.

He didn’t say anything, his eyes fixed on the flames.

“Okay then,” she said. “Hot chocolate it is. I think I even have marshmallows.”

“Why do you feel the need to talk so much?” His voice was so low she could barely hear it.

“Well, since you’re not doing any work, someone has to,” she said. She felt like she was doing pretty well at the whole playing-cool thing, even if her hands were shaking so much that the spoon rattled against the pan as she stirred the hot chocolate. “You could try joining in, y’know. Act like a person instead of an ass.”

She heard the blankets around him rustle, and didn’t dare to turn in case he was going all Big Bad Blue again. She could feel his eyes on her, but it didn’t sound like he was getting up or moving towards her.

“What are marshmallows?”

Darcy glanced up at the polished wall. She could see him sitting up by the fire, wrapped up in his blankets. He looked smaller, weaker. “They’re candies,” she said, keeping her voice light. “You put ‘em in hot chocolate and they’re delicious.” She poured the hot chocolate - one mug for each of them - and scooped fluffy marshmallows into the mugs. Darcy took a deep breath before turning and forcing a smile. “Best hot drink ever created.”

His eyes were green again. Bloodshot, but green, and he was watching her.

“I doubt that,” he murmured.

She padded back across the floor towards him, holding out one of the mugs. “You would,” she said. “Drink up, then get some rest.”

He wrapped long, pale fingers around the mug, his hands still shivering. He looked into the cup, then back up at her. “Thank you.”

Darcy perched on the arm of the chair. “Once more without sarcasm,” she said.

He sipped the chocolate, avoiding her eyes. 

So much for manners.


	7. Night-time Creeper

Darcy didn't know what woke her.

She had retreated to her own bedroom when Loki had curled up - closer to unconsciousness than sleep - on the rug in front of the fire. A sensible person would have tied him up or locked the door or something, but she was tired and cold and not exactly in thinking mode.

That's where she was when she jolted out of sleep.

It was still dark, a pale shaft of moonlight shining through a crack in the curtains.

Darcy sat up in the middle of her bed, squinting around the room, and she felt like some dumb chick in a horror movie when she saw Loki standing in the doorway. He was pretty much just a shadow, his hands were braced against the doorframe. She didn't know if he was using it to hold himself up or if he was doing it for drama. She could hear the rasp of his breath in the silence. 

She groped under her blanket with one hand. 

Sleeping with a tazer under the covers always seemed like overkill, but right now, the cold weight of it in her hand had never been more comforting.

"You okay?" she finally asked.

His head fell forward, and she could see the way his shoulders tensed.

Right.

Holding himself up.

That made things a little bit less scary.

"Why do you do this?" he asked, his voice low and raw.

"What? Sleep?"

He shook his head slowly from side to side. "I am your prisoner," he whispered. "Yet you wrap blankets about me. You tend me. You feed me. Why?"

Darcy ran her thumb along the trigger of the tazer. "Because I'm a human being," she said.

He laughed without humour, a breathless, tight sound. "You speak as if this is a virtue." He was swaying.

Darcy could see how her evening was going to go if she just stayed sitting there: the full length of ex-God was going to end up in a drooling heap on her bedroom floor.

She reached over and flicked her bedside lamp on, and looked up at him, squinting in the sudden light. He looked like hell. "Oh, for god's sake, sit down," she said sharply, shoving the blankets back, and swinging her legs out of the bed. "You're going to fall down."

He lifted his head. "I am not weak," he whispered.

She hesitated, then crossed the floor and grabbed his arm, dragging it over her shoulder. He staggered, and the weight of him against her almost made her legs buckle. "Sure, you're not," she said through clenched teeth. "And I'm Queen of America."

She managed to half-drag, half-guide him to the bed, and tipped him down onto it. His body bounced, face-down, but he managed to push himself onto his side, his eyes half-closed. He was flushed, and strands of dark hair were sticking to his cheeks.

"You look like crap," she informed him, tugging her tazer out from beneath the blankets.

"Charmed," he murmured. His eyes were fixed on her face, studying her.

"What?" she said, one hand on her hip. "Want to take a photograph? It'll last longer."

He took a slow breath. "You did not tell me why," he said. His voice was fainter.

"Why?"

"Why you are being kind to me."

She shrugged. "You're sick. Sure, you're an asshole, but that's no reason to be a bitch to you when you're sick."

He shook his head slightly. "What cause have you?" he asked. "What do you hope to gain?" His eyes opened fully, and she could see how confused he was. "What do you want of me?"

She turned the tazer over in her hands. "Right now?" she said, "I wouldn't mind getting off your Toast list."

His eyebrows drew together. "My what?"

"Your list," she said, "of people you want to kill. People who are toast. You're a big enough douche to have one."

He stared at her, then started laughing, unsteady, shaking chuckles. "Toast list." He rolled onto his back, pressing his hand to his chest, his laughter giving way to coughing. He rubbed his fingers slowly in a circle until the coughing subsided, and he looked up at her. "You are quite amusing, for a mortal."

"Mortal calling mortal black," she snorted, sitting down on the edge of the bed, far enough that he couldn't grab at her, but close enough that she could jab him with the tazer if need be. "They'll find you, y'know. Eventually."

Loki closed his eyes. "They can try," he murmured. "They have not thus far."

"Anyone ever tell you you're an egomaniac psychopath?" Darcy poked his leg with the tazer.

"Once or twice," he said, one side of his mouth twitching. He was silent for so long, she thought he'd gone to sleep, but then he opened his eyes and looked at her. "A wise person would have slain me where I slept." His voice was quiet, resigned. "A monster must be vanquished."

"Or you could stop being Captain Douchecanoe," she said dryly. "How about you stop killing people and trying to take over the world? Then no one would want to kill you."

"A King must have a throne," he murmured, his eyes drifting closed. "He always said I was to be King. My fate. He said it was so."

"And since when did King mean homicidal son of a bitch?" Darcy said quietly.

One eye opened a crack. "You do not know Kings," he breathed out.

"I don't think you do either," Darcy said. "Good Kings - hell, good leaders - only kill when they have to." She reached over to drag the blanket over him, and prodded him in the chest with her finger. "And they're smart enough to know when they've screwed up and try and make up for it."

His eyes were suddenly both open, and he stared at her. There was something guarded about his expression, but it didn't hide the pain that creased his features.

"What?"

He shook his head minutely. "You are not the first to say this," he said in little more than a whisper.

"Sounds like someone else was talking sense to you," she said. She patted the blanket over his chest. "You get some sleep and try not to kill anyone, okay? I'll be through on the couch."

Before she could rise, he caught the tips of her fingers in his trembling hand. "You are a fool, mortal," he breathed. "You should not trust me."

"Darcy," she said. "My name is Darcy."


	8. Lo, She Appears

Loki was quiet the next morning.

He'd exhausted himself, making his way from the living room to her bedroom, but he was awake when she poked her head around the door. He was lying on his side, his head resting on one arm, but his other hand was holding the picture from her bedside cabinet.

It was a selfie she had taken with Thor and his buddies the first time they had come to earth. They'd been as confused as Thor by the idea of a camera, but every one of them threw up the peace sign once she showed them how.

Loki didn't notice her, as he carefully put the frame back down, facing away from him.

"Friends of yours?"

He jolted, startled, and looked over his shoulder at her warily. "What?"

"Those guys," she said, leaning against the doorframe, her arms folded over her chest. "You know them, right?"

He glanced at the frame, then struggled to push himself up on his elbow, as if sitting up made him look stronger. It might have worked if he wasn't as white as paper and trembling with effort. "We were acquainted."

"Pissed them off too, huh?" She put her head to one side. "You're really not a people person, are you? Don't you have any friends? I mean, those guys are friends of Thor. What about you?"

He laboriously shoved pillows behind him, leaning back against them. He was breathing hard, and he was avoiding her eyes again. "Friendship is unnecessary."

Darcy looked at him, then at the photograph he'd turned away. She remembered Thor's friends, all big, strong, muscley warriors. Even the woman was a badass. Loki was nothing like them. If that was what normal Asgardians were like, it was easy to see why Loki would have problems counting them as friends. It was like a nerd growing up in Jock-land.

Okay, yeah, a mass-murdering psycho nerd, but still.

She approached the end of the bed. "Must be lonely."

He didn't look at her. "I have seen no one near you," he said. He was trying to sneer, but he only ended up sounding exhausted.

"Welcome to Colorado," she said, arms still folded over her chest. She drummed her fingers on her arms. "So, you hungry?"

"A little," he admitted. He was sinking back in the pillows, his face ashen.

He wasn't getting better, and some part of her was wondering about calling a doctor, but then the guy was an ex-God who had turned burning-smurf only the day before. That would be a hell of a thing to explain away.

The only other option was to try SHIELD or Jane again, and given their track record so far, that didn't look like it would get anywhere.

"You stay put," she instructed. "I'll put something together."

He nodded, his eyes falling closed again.

She retreated out of the room, closing the door behind her, and took a breath. The more she learned about the guy, the more complicated it was getting. He was just meant to be there to kill everything and everyone. He wasn't meant to be all complicated and layered and stuff.

The fire had gone out in the grate, and the air was crisp and cool. 

Darcy pulled on her fluffy slippers and her biggest, warmest sweater before she headed for the kitchen. It was a total mess, but having a rogue ex-God around was as good an excuse for not washing dishes as anything.

She was boiling the tea kettle when she heard the roar of an engine outside the house, and by the time she turned off the gas and rushed towards the hall, the front door was opening.

"Jane!"

Jane strode in, kicking snow off her boots. "Just passing through," she said, hurrying up the stairs that led to her office space.

Darcy hurried up after her. "What? Why?"

Jane dug through the papers and reports spread across the desk. "You don't need to worry about it," she said over her shoulder. "There are big things happening, and I don't want you to be in any danger this time."

"Big things like Loki not being dead and escaping from Asgard?" Darcy said before she could stop herself.

Jane froze, then slowly straightened up, turning to look at her. "What?"

Darcy winced. Loki had come here for Jane, and if she knew he was here, she would insist on facing him down. Even if he was weak, he could just be playing. He was the trickster god after all, and tricksters were good at fake-outs. "Nothing."

"Darcy, what do you know?"

Darcy fidgeted. "It was a guess?"

"I don't believe that," Jane said. She lowered her voice. "Have you seen something? Heard something?"

Darcy closed the door behind her. "Maybe if you checked your messages, you would know," she said, leaning back against the door. 

Jane withdrew her phone from her purse, looking at it, then at Darcy. "I was in a bunker. The signal wasn't good," she said slowly. "Darcy, what's going on?"

"He came looking for you," Darcy said quietly. "Loki. I think he wants to kill you."

"Where did he go?" Jane demanded. "Did he say?"

Darcy licked her lower lip. "He didn't go anywhere," she finally said. 

Jane stared at her. "What?"

"He's downstairs." She blew out a noisy breath. "I had him tied up and I called you and SHIELD, but no one came, and then he got sick, and now, he's in my bed, and I don't know what to do." She shrugged helplessly. "I think he might be dying."

"Or he might be playing you."

Darcy nodded. "Or that," she said, "but I don't think so. He's being too... pathetic to be faking. No one who wants to be a King like him would want anyone to see him crying on the rug."

Jane ran a hand over her face. "God..." She looked down at her cell, then back at Darcy. "How long has he been here?"

"A few days," Darcy replied. "All your equipment went all Asgard-connection and flashing, so I followed the signal and there he was, all mortal."

"Wait, what?"

"Didn't you hear the 'dying' part of the memo?" Darcy said with an impatient sigh. "He's all mortal now. And he's managed to hide out from Hind-all or Ham-dale or whatever his name was. The guy with the gate who can play Peeping Tom on the whole world thing."

"Heimdall?" Jane sat down on the edge of her desk. "That explains everything. He wasn't looking for a man."

"Well, we've got one," Darcy said dryly. "And if you ever listened to me, you wouldn't have been running around like a crazy person for three days." She was silent for a moment, then asked, "What are we gonna do? He came here looking for you, Jane. He might know you're here by now."

Jane set down her bag, and flicked her cell on. "Call for back-up," she said. Her fingers moved on the screen, tapping in a handful of letters, then she set it down. 

"SHIELD?"

Darcy shook her head. "This is bigger than them."

Ah.

"Goldilocks?" 

Jane nodded. "He's waiting at SHIELD," she said. She straightened up from the desk. "I think I should see him. Loki."

"Uh-uh!" Darcy shook her head. "I don't think that's a good idea! He came here looking for you, Jane! You're going to do just what he wants you to!"

Jane looked at her. "You said you think he's really sick," she said. "Do you think he'd be able to hurt me?"

Darcy hesitated. "Not really," she admitted. "He can't even sit up."

Jane nodded, her expression grim. "Okay. You have your tazer, right?"

Darcy patted the pocket of her sweater. "Always."

"Good."

They headed back down through the house, but when they reached the door, Darcy couldn't help noticing that Jane hesitated as put her hand on the handle.

"You don't need to go in," Darcy said quietly. "I can keep him here until Thor arrives."

Jane shook her head. "You should never have ended up caught up in this," she said. "He wants to see me, so he can see me, and if he tries anything, you can take him down."

Darcy withdrew the tazer from her pocket. "You got it."

Jane pushed the door open, stepping into the room, Darcy as close behind her as she could be.

On the bed, Loki had slumped back down. It looked weird, seeing him tucked up in the pink and blue patterned bedding, his dark hair spread around his face. He was curled up, like he was cold, shivering.

"Loki."

Green eyes cracked open, and his pale lips twitched in a tight smile. "Well, well," he whispered. "She appears."

Jane was clenching and unclenching her hands by her sides. "I heard you were looking for me."

With clear effort, Loki pushed himself up into a sitting position, his shoulders and bare arms tensed. "Indeed," he murmured. He closed his eyes, took several breaths, then looked up at her. "You recall when last we met, of course."

"Of course," Jane said tightly. "When you died."

His lips trembled, halfway to a smile. "And before that," he said, his voice hoarse. "When I saved your life."

"So you save it to come here and kill me?"

He leaned back against the headboard again, paler than before. "The Lady Darcy assumes much," he breathed. "I seek your intercession with my brother." He half-opened his eyes, the colour diluted and dull. "A life for a life, Lady Foster." His mouth curved briefly. "I do not wish to be slain by his hand."

"You're asking me to save you?" Jane said in disbelief. "After everything you've done? After all the times you've betrayed him? After all the people you killed?"

Loki slowly shook his head. "You misunderstand," he whispered. "I want you to save him. My brother... he is no monster. He would regret. It would destroy him."

Darcy gaped at him.

"Is this a trick?" Jane asked, her frown audible in her voice. "You're telling me you want to do something for your brother? How stupid do you think I am?"

The smile that crossed his lips reached his eyes. "Well, if I am to judge based upon your involvement with my brother," he murmured, "I must refrain from saying out of politeness."

Darcy couldn't help the snicker that escaped her.

Jane shot a warning look at her, but immediately turned back to Loki, who had subsided back against the pillows. "Why would you want to save him?" she demanded. 

Loki’s eyes were closed, and he rubbed one hand - trembling - on his chest. “Because when I was slain,” he whispered, “he wept for me.” His lashes flickered, and slashes of green were visible between them. “And I knew he was truly my brother.” His lips drew in a tired smile. “That is why I would save him.”


End file.
